L'BRARV OF CONGRESS 



OOll 898 339 



HOLUNGER 

pH8.5 

MILL RUN F3-1543 






<j1 



OUR aOVERNMENTAL PO 




SPEECH 

OF 

HON. JOHN THOMPSON, OF NEW YORK. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 20, 1859. 



Mr. Clminnan, I sincerely regret that pen- 
tlemen have Ijeen uuwise cnouirh to coim- 
inerice the (lisciisaiou of party phitforins on 
this floor. I think the gentleman irom Maine 
on one side, and the gentleman from Kentucky 
on the otiier, are both agri'ed in a radical error, 
bnt deducing from it iliftercnt consequences. 
Both substantially claim thai the llejmblican 
]>arty is a part^'of o«e iilrci, with the single mis- 
sion of resisting the aggressions of the slave 
power ; one says its work all lies yet before it, 
and therefore it must remain true and steadfast 
to this central idea ; the other insjt^ts that its 
work is done, and therefore it should disband. 
I deny the Jiff as asserted by the gentleman 
IVom .Maine. I deny the infe/rnnc of the gen- 
tleman from Kentucky. The Repuliiican party, 
as I unilerstand it, has a distinct line of domes- 
tic and foreign policy, embracing all the great 
interests of the country, which it ju'oposes to 
carry forward — on finance, trade, commerce, 
internal improvement, economy in the Admin- 
istration, as well as in respect to the govern- 
ment of our Territories, and upon which it in- 
vites the co-operation of all patriotic and good 
men, Nortii and South, Kast and West, without 
expecting that all its adherents should concur 
to an iota in every item of its catholic creed. 

Sir, it is the glory of the Repul)lican church, 
and its strength also, that it admits of unity in 
diversity ; banded together in a common aim, 
and yet various in the character of its civic 
equipments; constructing no narrow planks or 
platforms, to operate as instruments of c.vclu- 
sion, and elements of disunion and distrust. I 
deny any man's right to make a new platform 
for our party. Such an attempt WT)nld bo as- 
sumption, by whomsoever undertaken. The 
Northern press has not thought it wise or ex- 
pedient to attempt it. Will any man show me 
his commission from the sovereign people to 



turn out any such piece of political carpentry? 

We stand upon what is before the country, 

without addition or subtraction. For myself, 

T trample all new platforms under my feet. 

They answer in politics to the history of creeds 

in the church ; marks, often, of the narrowness 

and bigotry of the hour, from which all that is 

progressive is excluded ; fetters on the free 

spirit of the age. I trust the path the Repub- 

; lican party travels will l)e neither " too narrow 

for friendship, nor too slippery for repose ; " that 

' it does and will embrace a brotherhood suthcient- 

ly liberal and enlightened to march in various 

I uniforms, with different yet friendly banners to 

the music of the Union and the Constitution. 

j I see no reason to repudiate any principle or 

I expedient on which 1 acted at the last session. 

That action has been approved by the country; 

j let us rest in that. I have no right to speak 

I tor Maine ; but New York loves to strike hands 

j with Kentucky and North Carolina and Mary- 

■ land, and any of her sister Republics, North or 

I South, in the great work of National purgation 

I and reform. 

j We are not to be narrowed down and hedged 
: in to the single question of how we are to gov- 
ern the Territories, and what is the extent of 
Congressional power over them. Nor is this 
I the sole test and touchstone of Republicanism ; 
: for it is only at this single point that what is 
I so much insisted on is of any practical appli- 
I cation. Beside, that battle is already fought 
in all latitudes covered by the old compromise 
I line, and of wliich Southern statesmen cannot 
j complain, inasmuch as the compromise origin- 
ally passed by their votes was repealed by them 
in 1854:, to give the people an opportunity of 
acting their own pleasure on the subject of 
their domestic institutions ; and ^yhich pleasure, 
long thwarted, has at length been signified, 
and this was all the South p7'ofessed to desire. 



/i) 






South of that line the question remains as if it 
had not been disturbed, except that the reopen- 
ing of this subject in lf<r)4, and its issues, has 
landed to make' the sentiment very general at 
the North, that no moreshive States ought to 
fome i^to the Union, although this is not in- 
cluded in the Philadelphia platforni, nor is it 
a test of Republicanism, Still, should men of 
these sentiments'colo'nize territory south of that 
line, invited bjl-this action pf 'Southern states- 
men, who jireter. their-doings to that of mem- 
bers of Congress, sworn to obey the Constitu- 
tion ; and should the result turn out as in Kan- 
sas, while the North will be satisfied, those at 
the South who desired other results may not 
have occasion greatly to admire this wonder- 
working repeal of 18.54. So confident am I of 
the expansibility and invincibility of free-soil 
and free-labor principles, that J care nothing 
for ordinances, provisoes, or any other Con- 
gressional and parchmented fencings. Brush 
them all away, and yet Liberty, like an oak that 
grows stateliest in storms, will send out her 
grasping roots in the soil, and throw up her 
towering branches to the sky, mightier for her 
stern wrestling, affording shelter and shade to 
the nations. Mere statutes cannot protect 
liiberty; her vitality and vigor spring out of 
the strong hearts of the people. Statutes are 
only her expression, not lier bulwark or de- 
fence. 

For myself, I have no tenacity as to party 
names; I go for things — for the combination 
and unity of all good and true men, Irom all 
sections of the couiitry, after the example of 
this House at the last session, and of several of 
our States at the recent elections, where, l:)y 
such combination fi)r a common object, we 
succeeded, and where, without it, we should 
have been dcti^ated infallibly, and shall be 
again, whenever such unity is repudiated and 
al)audoned. It is idle to "talk of " allies" in 
this connection, because every man, acting in 
behalf of a great national object, is an ally of 
every other ; and yet, altogether, we are one. J 
think the gentleman from Kentucky unfairly 
charges on the Senator from New York the 
•lictation of the views of the gentleman from 
Maine. The Rochester speecli, as I understand 
it, proposes no political interference by the 
General Government in the institutions of the 
Southern States. It announces, in principle, 
the antagonism of the two systems of frwe and 
slave labor, but predicts a ])eriod in the future 
when the people of those States will, of their 
own accord, adopt the one aud repudiate the 
other. Here is his language : 

" It remains to say on tliis point only onowor<1,to guard 
against misapprehension. II' these Stiites arc to again bo- 
cumn uuivi'i-saily slavcholding, I do not pi-etoni^to sav ^s•ith 
what violations oC llic Constitution that end shall he <"icconi- 
plished. On the, other hand, while I do eonfidCMillv believe 
and hope that my conntry will yet become a land of uni- 
v(M-sal FretMloui. I do not expect that it will be made so other- 
wise than through the action of the several States, co-opera- 
ting with the Federal Government, and all acting in strict 
conformity with their rospecUvo Constitutions." 



How absurd the misapprehension, how need- 
less the alarm, excited on this subject. I turn 
to other topics. A progressive people will not 
sustain or long tolerate an unprogressive Gov- 
ernment. The law of development is the prin- 
ciple of our national life, and this law will have 
its operation in spite of all statutes that woidd 
hinder and all policies that would thwart it. 
The course of all free Governments proves that 
they have steadily progressed from the lower 
to the higher, from the crude and immature to 
the more complete, and have followed no course 
successl'ully, and stood upon no policy any 
longer than it was suited to the wants of the pub- 
lic, and gave full expression to its instincts and 
needs. Measures which the age has outgrown 
fall away from it, or are retained by constraint 
only to fetter its movements and derange the 
action of its forces. And no Power can hold 
on to a useless and worn-out policy, without be- 
ing cast otf with it; hence all national and gov- 
ernmental measures are essentially empirical in 
the philosophical sense. Politics has no eternal 
principles beyond which the State cannot go; 
no stereotyped form of procedure which it is 
sacrilegious to pass. Democracy has an ad- 
vancing and changing life ; it therefore con- 
stantly demands and creates new forms of ex- 
pression, instrumentalities of its higher culture. 
The wisdom of the past is admirable as a guide, 
but no limitation upon the future ; it may light 
us to new paths, but cannot interdict them to 
our footsteps. 

The policy and measures of a people, in their 
foteign and domestic relations, are distinguish- 
able from those principles upon which the Gov- 
ernment itself is based. The equality of man ; 
the supreme power of the people ; the derivative 
power of the executive, legislative, and judicial 
departments; the responsibility of these to the 
public ; the sanctity of the Union and of the 
Constitution, whose Federal links clasp us to- 
gether, in every letter and line of it ; these and 
tjie like are foundation stones — immutable 
principles, in which our national life is rooted ; 
but M'hat shall be t.lie precise shape of that vast 
machinery which the nation wields, and through 
,i«i(\'hich it displays the energy of its forces, and 
makes known its sovereign behests, is always 
matter for counsel and deliberation, compro- 
mise, concession, guided by the lights of the 
hour and the exigencies of the occasion. This 
Is the field for the wisdom of statesmanship — 
the arena for the display of political science, 
which, in a progressive age, rests necessarily 
not so much in principles as in measures, 
which the ever-shifting interests of a nation 
may demand should be modified or changed. 
What is best for the nation, in its circum- 
stances ? is the great problem for those who 
guide her counsels, and woe to them if they 
mistake — for mistake here is crime. This is 
what Burke asserted concerning measures of 
state, and in which he has been so widely 
misunderstood. 



And now, sir, let me say that I propose to 
examine brieHy some leadin": features in the 
policy of the present Administration, in the 
.measures it advocates and sustains; and, in the 
light of the principles 1 have announced, I shall 
hold it responsible, with ample power and domi- 
nant majorities, not only for all the new evils it 
practices, Ijut tor all the old aliases it tolerates. 
They are its own by adoption, whenever and 
however they originated; ibr no partv can es- 
cape the penalty of public condcninailon, that 
shelters itself beneath precedi^ts it has the 
power to alter, and skulks behind the judicial 
fortresses which the practices of a [Kist age 
have erected. In that day, the fetters that now 
so gall may have been wiselv forged ; tlie can- 1 
kers that now so corrode, mav have been the j 
symptoms of health. Every epoch must justify ! 
Its measures to itself, for it can take nothing ! 
trom the past but by rcadoption. And before ' 
noticing one or two branches of ibreign policy, 
1 propose to consi.ler what is the character of 
our domestic relations in — 

1. The Indian department. 

2. Our fiscal system. 
H. Our bankrujit policv. 

4. Our revenue and protective system. 

5. Economy in our administrative depart- 
ments. 

I. No nation, except the British and French 
for a brief period, and the Spanish for a lono-er, 
have had this problem, ofdeaiiuL' with the sav- 
age upon their border, to work out; to manaire 
and mould the encounter of the untamed child 
of the forest with the semi-barbarons white- 
shrewd, adventurous, daring, unscrupulous- 
wearing his grotes^iue and centaurian civiliza- 
tion, half Christian, half Indian, more as a o-ar- 
ment than as a life. The Frenchman. witlAhe 
easy flexihiliy of his nation, instead of meetinrr 
savage life with a rude shock, insensiblv melted 
and blended them together, so that it was hardly 
possible to say what was civilized, and what was 
barbarian. The French emigrant, trader, and 
trapper, sat m the wigwam with the same non- 
chalance as he trod the Boulevards ; and smoked 
with the chieftain, or married his squaw, as if it j 
was all a regular and anticipated procedure ! \ 
l<rom the mouth of the St. Lawrence to those of 
the Mississippi, throu^rli the chain of the great 
lakes, and down the father of wafers, the 'trap- 
per and .lesuil paddled juMcefullv with the In- 
dian. The result of this polic^y, with hardlv an 
exception, was salutary, benign. If it barbar- 
ized the Frenchman, it civilized the savage, and 
created in the contact, and by the halfdireeds 
of the union, a race in which" the elements of 
improvement seemed to reside. It gave to the 
Indian a desire fbr propertv and 'a taste for 
agricultural life. It was a peace policy. But 
with the English, whose measures we have 
adopted, and the Spaniard, it was a war policv. 
It looked to punishment, vengeance, extermin.a- 
tion. It roused in the Indian all his traditional 
propeusititw, aud i*timulated all his passion lor 



plunder and blood. It denied his rights and 
his nationality, cheated him of his land.i, re- 
1 pelled his efforts at enlightenment, treated 'him 
I as a wild beast, and provoked and maddened 
I him to skulk round the cabin of the pioneer, 
I that, in the scalping of a victim, the sword of 
; the white might exterminate or scatter a whole 
! tribe or nation ! 1 have no time for particulars 
i with which the pages of our Indian policv is 
I crimsoned : but there they stand, all over its 
* history. 

I We are called on now to vote a recompense 
I for depredations to individuals of dilferent 
States, which this policy has occasioued, and 
I for wars of reprisal and extermination. All 
[along our bc^rders, life has been sacrificed, the 
midnight brand ajjplied. and property destroyed ; 
to be followed in turn bv those sure and over- 
whelming disasters of the Indian, which a civil- 
ized nation will assuredly inflict upon him ; and 
this same line of procedure is maintained; col- 
lision and blood follow contact evervwhere. The 
war policy, the cut-throat system, "is the great 
engine we are now employing- to civilizt- the 
Indian. What did Spain re^Ip from this policy 
fbr more than two hundred years? The race 
she found was in a transition state from ruder 
to better life. They hud architecture, painting, 
wealth, and other evidences of proi,rress. 
Through Central and South America, "they 
were conquered and enslaved ; but the element 
with which we deal, in these higher latitudes, is 
of rougher and tougher material. It disdains 
to put on the yoke or wear the fetter. It will 
break, but not bend. Its fibre has no element 
of pliability, and refuses submission or toil. But 
we have been often told— the evidence is around 
us now, sounds in our ear, both in the Senate 
and on this floor—that our Indian policy should 
be, must be, that of peace. Feed the Indian, 
and not fight him ; fill his stomach with !n-e:id, 
and he will have "no stomach " fbr the fray. 
Our war policy, beside being the most'un- 
I philosophical, barbarous, inhuman, and lookiii"- 
j only to the complete annihilation of the Indian 
i tribes, IS the most expensive one that could be 
pursued ! One-lburth the sum drawn out of our 
bankrupt and borrowing Treasury to pav for 
Indian wars, would, if expended in a peace pol- 
icy, blunt the edge of every knife, and burv in 
eternal amity every tomakawk west of the Mis- 
sissippi. Claims for untold millions are now 
unad)uste<l for impromptu and spontaneous In- 
dian wars :^ our frontiers, in Washington, Ore- 
gon, and 'lexas, are liable to perpetual inroada 
and alarms ; and yet the war policy is ])ersisted 
111. No comi)rehensivc and pacific scheme is 
announced or projios-d in its place ! It has but 
one sad, fearful end ! Slaughter ! slaughter 1 
slaughter! Is the {.olitical wisdom of this great 
^ political nation foundered and wrecked on this 
I Indian problem ? Are jobs and contracts and 
:})luiuier for munitions of war, to swallow, 
I in their remorseless jaws, every principle of 
i leclitude, every aentiment of humanity, every 



politic and peaceful eflort for the adjust- 
ment of this crying evil, and our Adminis- 
tration to go through the mockery of feast- 
ing and frolicking wiih a few painted braves, 
who are annually brought here to see their 
great father, while at the same time the inex- 
orable decree tor the annihilation of their tribes 
is being carried steadily forward, until, in a few 
years, no red-skin will hunt buffalo on the prai- 
ries, and the last wigwam will be struck on the 
shore of the Pacific? 

11. Owr Jiscal 6-i/>i/em. What is that? It is 
called, in the party catechism, the " Independ- 
ent Treusiin/.''' I call it a myth : a cheat ; a 
double-distilled humljug ; the shadow of a 
shade. It originated iu an effort to dispense 
with banks in a commercial age ; in the charla- 
tan enterprise of doing without promises to 
pay; of discarding, in all Governmental affairs, 
the credit system ; of receiving hard money 
only ; holding the hard money, and disbursing 
the identical hard money. If this is not done 
universiiUy, nothing is done. It was predicted 
at the time by the most eminent statesmen then 
living, that no such system could be carried out 
in a country of such wide latitudes and iar-reach- 
iug interests, where payments were to be made 
thousands of miles from the place of principal 
collection, saving immense risk and expense to 
debtor and creditor; that paper exchanges and 
faith of man in man, of the troverument in its 
citizens, of the citizen in the Government, could 
not be discarded without great danger as well 
to the material as the moral interests of the 
nation. But the swell of the popular surges 
that swept away the Bank of the United States 
were too high and headlong to be resisted. 
The credit system was to be broken down, so 
far as the Government could break it ; and it 
was even vainly supposed that by its accumu- 
lation of specie it could command and control 
all the banks of the several States. 

Well, sir, what might have been effected, we 
cannot tell. The experiment has never been 
tried. The Treasury relies still, and must al- 
ways rely^upon and use the ordinary exchanges 
of the country to make its payments. The 
system so much desired, and so loudly lauded 
ever since, has lost all its substance ; preserves 
the shell of appearances, while its life and soul 
are not there. It is a sort of Democratic idol, 
without head, hands, or feet ; a black, square 
monster, banded, ribbed, and riveted, at whose 
Midas shrine the party bow and worship ; the 
Uagon of Tammany Hall, where it should be 
removed, as a perpetual memento, to soothe the 
spirits of the gentle sachems, and certify them 
continually that nothing is impossible in poli- 
tics. 

Sir, in the face of all this transparent hum- 
buggery, the affairs of the Government are, 
and must be, carried on by the use of a more 
sensible agency. A fiscal system could be 
ailopted, suited to the wnuts of the age, harmo- 
niQus with the great commercial relatioua and 



interests, amidst winch it must hare its play, 
and aiding, not impeding, that system in the 
States, that have now so limited and fortified 
their systems of banking, that they are as safe 
as the ingenuity of man can make them. 

This I ndependent Treasury is only a flag of hos- 
tility, a declaration of war by the Government 
upon all jn'omises to pay. It demands the pay 
without the promises, and deals with its citizens 
upon the principle that every man is a knave. 
Sir, the " promise to pay" has effected the most 
stupendous changes in the history of modern 
civilization; it is written on the forefront of all 
those movements that create new empires on 
this continent ; it blazes on the door-posts of 
the settler's cabin ; it lifts its wand, and " Lo ! 
the desert and solitary place are glad ! " the 
lowing of the cattle is heard on the hill side, and 
the corn waves in our valleys ; it fells forests, 
builds churches, schools, and dwellings; sends 
the ploughshare through the bosom of the virgin 
soil; spreads the canvas of commerce on the 
ocean, and the network of railways on the land ; 
it stimulates thought, enlarges intelligence, wi- 
dens the explorations of science, and gives to 
society its cementing elements of brotherhood 
and faith ; and, sir, the people that use it, pay 
what they promise. They are ennobled to ful- 
fil ; the rule is 'that of performance, notwith- 
standing partial and local aberrations, and the 
distrust v/hich a miserly policy creates. I am 
in favor of the promise to pay, and I scorn 
and contemn that miserable subterfuge, at once 
a hypocrisy and a blunder, that despises credit 
while it is borrowing millions, and repudiates a 
policy at one moment, and for })arty ends, in 
which it constantly lives and moves, and has 
its being. 

Here is the last bugle-note sounded over this 
mythic remnant of an unprogressive barbarous 
age : " The operations of the Independent 
Treasury system," says the Secretary of the 
Treasury, " have been conducted, during the 
last fiscal year, with the usual success ; another 
year's experience confirms the opinions I ex- 
pressed in my former annual report," &c. And, 
in addition to all this, our sagacious Secretary, 
who, in fiscal affairs, has never yet been able 
to see to the end of the next week befi)re him, 
proposes that each State should imitate this 
grotesque blunder and folly, by getting up an 
iron chest of its own for the hoarding of State 
revenues, in imitation of the General Govern- 
ment. Sir, we have all heard of the man of the 
" Iron Mask."' I think we have found his 
brother, or the man of the ''Iron Boxes." 

111. Bankrupt law for corporations. But our 
paternal Government has not yet exhausted all 
the riches of its Avisdoni, on this pet of the past. 
It has been found, that with all the accumula- 
tions it could muster, it could not yet seriously 
interfere with the fiscal affairs of our great 
commercial centres, like New Orleans, Charles- 
ton, rhiladel|ihia, New York, and Boston ; that 
it simply abstracted and held so much specie, 



as if it was stricken out of llie countrv, but tliat 
the enormous iniiux of gold froniGalifurniH ami 
elscAvhere rapidly tilled up the vacanc)', and 
that no danger exists that a relative specie 
basis will not be preserved. 'J'lie commercial 
system of the country laughs at this monster, 
and defies him. A new expedient is therefore 
concocted. The President asstnls, and his 
{secretary endorses it with a wide show of statis- 
tical argumentation, that the i)eople need })r()- 
tection against tiiemselves ; against their own 
extravagance of borrowing, lending, and specu- 
lation. That ihey are not to be trusted with 
these dangerous tiscal instrumentalities, or per- 
mitted the use of banks, except under the risk 
and penalty of having them grasped by the 
strong hand of the Federal Government, and 
wrenched away, with all their values and re- 
sources, the n\oment any partial or geiu^ral 
derangement in trade affects them or their cus- 
tomers ; for it is the custonter of the bank, as 
I shall show, against whom tliis war of power 
and empiricism is waged. The President says, 
iu his hrst message : 

" Congress, in my opinion, popspssps thi' power to pass t\ 
unilbrni bankrupt law upplicaMe to ;i|l l)anl<iM;,' inKtiliition:; 
throughout the Uuiteil Stales, iind 1 stnmr/li/ reeonnnen'l its 
exercise. This woulil malcc it the ir/w'/v<iW<! or^^ann; law of 
each bank oxisteiiee, that a suspension of specie payments 
shall produce its civil death. " 

The Secretary endorses and advocates it to 
show that it is a darling and cherished mea.sure ; 
it is again recommended in the message to this 
Congress, although reported again.stby the Judi- 
ciary Committee ; and these measures advoca- 
ted by an Adtuinistralion that Ijelieves Congress 
has no power to charter a bank, (which I do 
not care to disj)ute,) and modestly proposes to 
step in and place these creatures of the several 
States, and owned by private citizens of those 
States, having no element of Federal interest 
about them, and no item of Federal jurisdiction 
in them, under the control of a Federal otlice- 
holder, tlie moment tliey suffer any of those 
derangements to which the commercial and 
monetary interest of our citizens are liable; so 
that any aberration is to be putiislicd with death ; 
they are not to be affectetl by reverses, on pen- 
alty of annihilation. Now, sir — 

1. I deny the policy of this course of ]iro- 
cedure, if it were feasible ; it is the shallowest 
quackery that any statesman could ])ropound. 

2. I deny the constitutional power of Con- 
gress to ptiss any such law. 

1. As to its policy, iiook at the results of 
such a measure, if it could be carried out. What 
would htive ))een its effect in the great crisis of 
1857? The President says truly in his message: 

" No Government could have prevented the late revulsion. 
The whole coniraercial world seemed for years to have been 
rushing to this catastrophe." 

And yet he would have every moneyed in- 
stitution which bowed to this storm in tiie com- 
mercial world, not uplifted and aided to recover 
its usefulness to the community, btit torn up by 
the ruuU, and thrown into the fiery furnace of 



Federal vengeance ; and this, too, when it was 
a victim, and not the agent, of the ruin. 

But take a bank, located in any of our small 
towns, North or South, as a specimen. With a 
capital of $2(K),000, it accommodates say tiireo 
hundred tanners or planters in their purchase 
of stock or grain; perhaps a mill, and two man- 
ufacturing estabiisiimcnis, employing one hun- 
dred operatives each ; iifty mechanics, three or 
tour merchants, and tlie usual po}mlation of 
such a town. Everything seems healthy, flour- 
ishing, prosperous. But a crisis comes, which 
" no Government could prevent,"' *' the whole 
conrmercial world '' being in it, and the bank is 
to be wound up. Why ? Because it fails to pay 
specie, on demand, at its counter, dollar for dol- 
lar. Why does it so fail ? Because tiie com- 
munity to whom its loans are made cannot pay 
specie to the bank lor their indebtedness, or, 
indeed, any money, for a time ; tind so they are 
in the grasp of a Federal receiver. He opens 
the scene by denninding of the population I 
have just named specie for their notes, dol- 
lar for dollar ; and, in delault, every man is 
sued, judgment obtained, and half the three 
hundred farms, the mill, the two factories, three 
stores and their contents, are all in the hands 
of the marshal, to be sold at auction to the high- 
est bidder. But where are the buyers? On the 
supposition we make, the whole country, as iu 
1857, is in the like condition, with some small 
exceptions of hoarded specie stored away in 
miserly pockets. This residue of specie would 
buy the town. Every man owing a dollar would 
lall a prey to the accidental owner of coin ; and 
a scene of universal and irredeemable bank- 
ruptcy, ruin, misery, and horror, would super- 
vene, which the mind sickens to contemplate. 

Sir, I tell you, in such a state of things, your 
bankrupt law for corporations would be a dead 
letter. The people would rise in their wrath, 
and hang your receivers and marshals on the 
first lamp-post. "W'ith beggary staring them in 
the face, wrenching the bread from the moutha 
of their children, and tearing the shelter from 
over their heads, all the Federal bayonets on 
this continent could not enforce your law iu the 
single city of New York ; so that in a general 
crisis it would be useless, and in partial and 
local instances it is unnecessary ; because, iu 
the case of tin unsound bank here and there, no 
derangement of the currency takes j)lace, 'and 
such institutions are safely left to the legislative 
and jitdicial action of the State that created 
them. The policy is unwise in every aspect of 
it. First, it would result in universal ruin, if 
successful. Second, the people would not sub- 
mit to it. Third, in a general panic it would, 
therefore, be useless. Fourth, in partial in- 
stances it is unnecessary, and belongs to the 
States themselves. 

2. Congress has no constitutional power to 
pass any such law — it is rank, undisguised Fed- 
eralism, of the extremest school. It stands 
upou a thin iiamework of iuiplicatiou, founded 



6 



.ipon oilier implications still more unsubstantial, 
riie power ot Congress is derived in this respect 
Tuai the people ot the (States. The}', the States, 
ire sovereignties ; but this term has no appli- 
jation to the Federal Government ; it takes 
Tilly what is '' nominated in the bond." " Con- 
gress shall have power to establish unifOTm laws 
'^n the subject of l)ankruptcies throughout the 
United States," is the toundation of this power. 
H-Ow broad is it, and what, if any, are its neces- 
sary implications ? Can it reach out its arms 
iiid grasp any particular State interest, and 
Liring it within the vortex of party and class 
legislation ? Can it select, at pleasure, banks, 
i-ailroad companies, manutacturing companies, 
partnerships — in tine, any of the agencies of as- 
sociated wealth — and fix a Federal lasso about 
;heir necks, under pretence of passing uniform 
laws ? 

1 claim that this term '' uniform " means not 
simply that the laws shall have one shape, form, 
and substance in respect to themselves, but 
shall have a uniform application to all business 
and persons, individual, associated, or corporate, 
throughout the United States, who are traders 
or merchants. This is its clear and obvious 
meaning ; otherwise, the door is open here for 
the most odious and alarming class legislation, 
to be applied to planters only, or lawyers only, 
or politicians only, as well as to banks or cor- 
porations only. So the framers of the Consti- 
tution understood this power from the example 
of Great Britain, where such laws were in oper- 
ation tor three hundred years ; so the States 
who adopted the Constitution understood it : 
and so Congress has construed this power by 
their action, in 184:1, in the passage of the only 
bankrupt law ever enacted under it. Congress 
may " levy imposts and excises," but they shall 
be *' uuitbrm," throughout the United States, 
says the Constitution. How uniform — upon a 
particular class importing or holding property? 
No ; but upon that property, into whose hands 
soever it may pass, or by whomsoever held, in 
any State of the Union ; for if a class of persons 
may be selected under the Constitution, why 
ziot of a particular district ? And thus one 
State, or its pecular interests, as of iron, or cot- 
ton, or sugar, be compelled to pay all the taxes 
of this " uniform " system, and by the same rule 
of logic that justihes the application of bank- 
rupt laws to corporations only, or any other ex- 
ceptive class. 

When public men rush into this Federal vor- 
tex, which ingulfs all State rights and State in- 
stitutions, they may recommend, in their fatuity, 
that all railroad corporations, as the Secretary 
of the Trearury has done, or all steamship cor- 
porations, or all cotton-growing or cotton-con- 
suming corporations, shall be made subject to 
such law ; but I trust Congress will never become 
so politically insane. What! does the Executive 
not only desire to grasp our banks, and destroy 
our trade, but to control our means of locomo- 
tion, aud cGxupel us to stay at home at the im- 



[ perial pleasure of some Federal receiver? 
j Could this be effected, the French Emperor 
! might envy the craft aud address of a Yankee 
j rival. Sir, 1 might lay the whole stress of my 
objection here ; that the system proposed is not 
I uniform, that it does not apply to traders ; but 
j 1 take higher ground that this. I plant my foot 
I on the lotty and unsurrendered attributes of 
State sovereignty. These corporations are the 
creatures of State laws ; in their inception, 
progress, and ojjeration, they are guided by 
State wisdom and State control. Let not Fed- 
eral authoi'ity lay its meddlesome fingers on 
anything that belongs to them, except so for as 
the Slates have consented, otherwise there will 
inevitably result a shock in the system, indica- 
tive of conflicting jurisdictions, and the tierce 
jar of opposing forces wrestling for mastery. 1 
am jealous as any man of this insidious spirit 
of Federal incroachment, this invasion of power 
upon the domain of right, this clutch of the ser- 
vant upon the reserved wealth of his master. 

1 know it is affirmed that Congress, having 
power to " coin money and regulate the value 
thereof," may by implication grasp hold of aud 
manage anything used by the States or people 
as money. But what has this implication to 
rest on ? Congress may coin money, (not issue 
bills,) and regulate the value of such coin ; 
nothing else. All the General Goverument can 
do is to refuse to take the currency of the States 
in national transactions ; here her power ends. 
She has no right to say that I shall not receive 
the promise to pay of a bank of my State, any 
more than from one of ray neighbors for goods 
sold and delivered. 

1 know, indeed, that these recommendations, 
though twice made, have not yet met with for- 
mal adoption by the party ; but if unrebuked 
and unexposed, the time will come when lying 
dormant for a season, like viper's eggs, the warm 
sun of party success will quicken them into life 
and vigor, and they will come forth and throw 
their coils around these State interests, until 
their poison shall enfeeble, and their strength 
strangle them to death ! They shall touch no 
interest of my State, with ray consent. The in- 
sane war on the monetary interests of the peo- 
ple began in iHi)?, by the Government, and, re- 
buked tgain and again, is renewed in every form 
of which its authors are capable. Those in 
power are incessantly tampering with the cur- 
rency; advocating at one time a national bank, 
and then insisting on its repeal ; having at one 
moment great faith in State banks, and at 
another no confidence whatever in such institu- 
tions ; using at one period the currency of State 
institutions, and at another discrediting it, and 
resorting to one exclusively metallic. They 
have been smitten with a perpetual unrest, which 
seems to have settled with all its disquietudes 
on the present Executive, who benevolently in- 
forms us that the "existence of banks, and the 
circulation of bank paper, is so identified with 
the habits of our people, that they cannot be 



suddenly abolished without much inimediato 
injury to the country ; "' foreshadowing, however, 
that in case of ill behaviour, Congress should 
prohibit altogether their issuing the "promises 
to pay." 

Sir, I should like to look upon an Adniinis- 
tratiou that would seriously enter upon this 
tritiing task. I denounce it all as a systematic 
conspiracy to control all the moneyed interests 
of this country ; to clutch the purse-strings of 
all private as well as public wealth ; and sweep 
into the train of Federal consolidation the dis- 
tinct agencies of individual and State enter- 
prise But 1 can only indicate outlines at this 
time, leaving full discussion to some other oc- 
casion. 

IV. Our revenue and protective system. On 
this subject, I am free to confess that I sympa- 
thize to some extent with those who desire the 
lowest duties on imports, compatible with the 
wants of the Government. In this age, no in- 
terest, trade, or calling, should be protected for 
the sake of protection ; it is, to some extent, a 
tax on the rest of society. The theory of free 
trade can never be refuted, provided you discard 
the idea of separate, hostile, or dependent na- 
tionalities. The principle as such is unanswera- 
ble, standing alone. 

But the dilticulty is, it does not stand alone. 
It is controlled and modilied by countervailing 
national legislation, by revenue necessities, hy 
the balance of trade, and other disturbing forces, 
that place it among the class of political expe- 
dients which a people may alter, increase, or di- 
minish, as the best interests of the times may 
demand ; and if, in such increase or diminution, 
discrimination can be made which will operate 
incidentally as a protection, so let it be ; pro- 
vided, always, if it be not so large as to stimu- 
late an outlay which a slight or even considera- 
ble change in the necessities of Government 
might destroy. Our manufacturing interests 
are not benefited so much by high as by steady 
tariffs. Jt may as well be admitted at the out- 
set, that American manufactures cannot meet 
those of other countries on terms of equality, 
that pay only one-third or one-fourth the wages 
we are compelled to disburse ; their profit must 
exceed ours by all this difference. I take it for 
granted we shall never resort to direct taxation 
for the support of the National Government, 
however beneficial such policy might be. If 
adopted, it would doubtless diminish the amount 
one-half in a single year ! For what Congres- 
sional district could, or would, pay the two hun- 
dred and fortieth part of $80,000,000 per an- 
num — or about three hundred and forty thou- 
sand dollars for each district. Its collection 
would create civil war and dissolve the Union 
eo instanU. The people will_pay indirectly what 
they would not directly. 

But, sir, on this matter of raising revenue, 
we are now at a stand ; wastefulness, pecula- 
tion, jobbing, and the cormorant bi-ood that 
feed and fatten on Executive favor, have emp- 
tied the public Treasury so fast, that some policy 



I of replenishment must be adopted, or bank- 
I ruptcvofthis great corporation is the ine<'itable 
result". What a spectacle ! with §70,000,000 
income : more than sufficient for the economi- 
cal support of Government in a time of peace, 
I to be compelled to borrow $20,000,000, per 
annum ! Individually, I would cut down ex- 
j peuditures, dismiss an army of office-holders 
I in every administrative department, and inau- 
1 gurate a system of close and rigid economy ; 
I this is an essential preliminary step. Still, if a 
\ revenue must be raised by imposts, on what 
principle should they be levied and adjusted. 

1. Imposts raise reven\ie by iadiieci taxa- 
tion. As a consequence, those who participate 
in the benefits of Government should bear its 
burdens, and these burdens should be so dis- 
tributed that the greatest numbers should pay, 
other things being equal. This is the radical 
idea of a tax. 

2. Imposts reguJcde trade and prevent ex- 
travagant and enormous importations, especial- 
ly of luxuries, which drain our country of its 
specie, in which alone our foreign debt is liqui- 
dated, and generate habits of wastefulness and 
folly among our people. Regard should be 
had, therefore, to this result. Any duty, the 
slightest, has some effect on the balance of 
trade. No statesman ^vill lose sight of it in 
large levies ; large importations and small ex- 
portations will soon beggar a nation ; better 
clothe the President and members of Congress 
in negro cloth, than bow the neck of this nation 
before the shrine of foreign luxury and trade. 
It subjects us to a servitude of the most humil- 
iating character ; and mortgages the energy and 
enterprise of the country, to fill the pockets of 
our foreign lords. 

3. Imposts operate as a protection to home 
industry in respect to the articles on which 
they are levied, whei'e articles of the same char- 
acter are produced at home. The free-trade 
school claim that incidental protection even is 
an evil; because, just to the extent of that pro- 
tection is an unjust tax levied on the rest of the 
community. But this assumes two very im- 
portant items in the account: 1. That increas- 
ed home manufactories do not create additional 
home markets. 2. That the consumer of the 
article has only the same ability to pay the cost 
and tariff that he had before such new manu- 
factories were established. It can be demon- 
strated, I think, that both of these assumptions 
are unfounded ; that new home markets are in- 
tantly opened, and that the producer of articles 
sold, and the consumer of articles bought, is 
far better able to pay both original cost and 
tariff, than he was before to pay only the first 
without such market. It is entirely fallacious 
to look only to the amount to be paid, without 
coui:iting upon the increased ability to pay. 

Again: the free-trade school reject specific 
and prefer ad valorem duties. I can divine no 
reason for this, but that the latter are in fact 
rendered less protective, in consequence of the 
wide latitude for frauds which it opens. This, 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRtSS 



specific duties will greatly remedy. I am in 
favor ol" tlie President's recommeiulutiou here, 
and will do what 1 can to carry it out. 

The example of Great Britain, and the enor- 
mous nulioual wealth she has accumulated by 
a strict adherence to the protective policy, in 
virtue of which she has become the workshop 
of the wiTld, imi>orting raw material and ex- 
porting manufactured goods to the extent of 
$liOO,yOO,000 per annum, is worth ten thousand 
theories and speculations oji that subject, and 
demonstrates this general truth in jjolitical 
economy : that a nation that exports its raw 
material will grow poor ; while a nation that 
exports manufactured goods will grow rich by 
all the difference of the industrial ibrces and 
their values expended on the articles. 

Jt is true of a neighborhood. State, or nation, 
and is susceptible of easy demonstration, all 
free-trade theories to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. England's free trade to-day is simply 
that she shall be free to crowd her manufactur- 
ed :irticles on our markets, and take what she 
pleases of our raw material in return, and hard 
money for the balance, and, as in the case of to- 
bacco and other articles, subject to tariffs beyond 
even the original cost of the article to the 
planter. We pay her tribute as really as if in 
a state of colonial subjection and vassalage. 
What avails our political enmncipation, our 
windy fourth of July glorifications, over our 
escape from her power, if we lay the wealth of 
our country, the bone and muscle of all our 
industry and enterprise and capital, willing of- 
ferings on her commercial altars ? Well might 
the patriotic spirit of Henry Clay chafe, like a 
caged eagle, to see his great country reduced 
to such humiliating conditions ! 

V. More rigid economy in the administrative 
department of (jrovernment. I have already 
adverted to this, and have no time for details, 
which are at hand in every bureau of the Gov- 
ernment. Take some of our custom-houses as 
a specimen. 1 extract the following from Mr. 
Boyce's report on free trade : 

Amount of reoenve. collected, and expeHdUures at certain cus- 
tomlioicseSf/or tlm fiscal year ending Jiine 30. 1857. 

x,„, .„„.,„ T7 ^,,,,1 K.\ceris uf 

Location. 



Re von no 
collected. 

Belfast, Maine - - $5,052.05 

Waldoboru'. Maine - 1,368.02 

Wi.scasset, Maine - 130.93 

Burlington, Vormout - 8,581.70 



lUHS,. «,.„_,.„,,„„„„ ■ 



Bai-nstible, Mass. 
Simdusky, Ohio - 
Ellsworth, Maine 
Portsmouth, N. H. 
Biiffalo, New York 
Oswego, New York 
Newark, New Jersey 
Pcnsacoia. Florida 
Perth Amboy.N. J. 
Astoria, Oregon - 
Maiihias, Maine - 
Plymouth, Mass. 
Bridgeport, Conn. 
Annapolis, Mnryland 
Pooria, Illinois 



1,402. 
567.84 
954.96 

- 5,530.54 

- 10,140.i53 

- 6,149.09 

384.30 
♦ 478.73 

- 1,531.73 

- 4,173.64 

008.71 
395.12 
805.44 
180.75 
210.20 



$6,012.87 

•7,547.14- 

7,3W.09 

16,285.47 

H,P53.20. 

4,372.06 

0,032.09 

10,984.49 

10,896.51 

18,214.58 

i;595.55 

3.012.62 

4;471.79 

21,254.51 

2,605.72 

3,216.04 

1,766.24 

929.20 

363.60 



ver revenue. 

$960.82 

■'6,179.12 

7,228.16 

7,703.77 

10,490.55 

3,S04.S2 

4,077.13 

5,453.95 

6,755.98 

12,005.49 

1,212.55 

2.033.89 

2.940.06 

17'.080.87 

1,997.01 

2,820.92 

OK.n.SO 

784.45 

153.40 



Corrupt ' llll'l Hi mil lllll lllll llil lllll (llll Id IK III Ijj 11 f rt ) ni 

the surf 011 898 339 7 (Jl'^liiljit 
unmistakable signs Ol 111.. »i.v. .... .- _ king; 

and yet the President is talking complacently 
of 6«//m/y Cubaat hundreds of millions, and ex- 
tending a protertoraie — an armed, etlicieut pro- 
tectorate — over Mexico and all the Gulf Stales. 
And gentlemen here are so inflated with this 
restless spirit of manifest destiny, that they are 
hardly to be kept from spontaneous combus- 
tion. Young America is become burglar and 
pirate, and is not content to sit on the Rocky 
Mountains and wash his feet in the Gulf of 
Mexico, but he must grasp Cuba, to sweeten his 
sugar-tooth, and have cheap sirup on his cakes! 
It IS not the first time this moral and political 
insanity has seized us, to steal what we could 
not buy, and did not want, and had no mean.s 
to pay tor. What can foreign nations do but 
despise our bluster, and treat all such gascon- 
ading as it deserves? Gentlemen seem to talk 
here about our expansion, as if we should suf- 
focate at once, unless we could kick up a row 
with all creation ! 

Too poor to pay our expenses in a time of 
profound peace, we are to organize an expen- 
sive army and naval equipment to buy or con- 
quer new dominions. Where is the money to 
come from ? I will tell you what is expected ; 
from plunder of the conquered countries ! Vain 
expectation ! They may be plundered indeed, 
as they now are ; but it will be only the old sys- 
tem of Roman pro-consular devastation, filling 
the pockets of Governors, and swellitig the for- 
tunes of a licentious soldiery, debauched by 
such services from their integrity ; but no stray 
copper will ever, even by accident, reach the 
coffers of the Republic. 

Sir, contiguous i.slands and States will fall 
into us as surely as time rolls on. All the navies 
of the civilized world cannot prevent it: but let 
them ripen first with the fruits of self-govern- 
ment; let their people desire the benefit of our 
laws and institutions ; let them be educated to 
take their places as independent States in our 
Federal system ; let the American spirit breathe 
over, and' burn in them, and then they will 
come, not as rough fragments torn from the 
side of some decaying monarchy, or tossed in 
th(; wild uproar of civil commotion, with no ele- 
ment of adhesiveness, and no tendency to re- 
pose; but as new planets, orderly, harmonious, 
they will fall into their api)ointed spheres, and 
sweep round the central orb that attracts them, 
part and parcel of a stupendous system that 
moves among the nations like the sun in the 
heavens ; glorious in the train his influence com- 
mands, and enriched not so much by his in- 
herent grandeur, as in the multitudinous splen- 
dors of surrounding- constellations. 



BUELL & BLANCHARD Print«rs, Washington, D. C. 



